I guess it's an overall improvement on the popamole Batman combat, but it's still based on that so it can never be as good as proper good action combat. It probably appeals to people that have never experienced how it feels like to git gud at something with more demanding combat.
If you're gonna spout baseless buzzwords just say it makes you FEEL like Batman.
It's true, though. Arkham combat is sort of a memorization or rhythm game. Mook with shield? Stun then vault. Mook with stun baton? Vault then attack from behind. Mook with gun? Batclaw. Ninja mook with sword? You do a different style of parry, including a more challenging variant that lets you instantly KO the mook after you parry. Plus a ton of additional moves that you unlock by getting a high combo multiplier, like throwing, AOE stun, instant KO on one enemy, or like 10 different gadgets that have different effects depending on how high your multiplier is, so it's not like there's no strategy in combat. The Arkham games also have a great feeling of impact in combat. There's a reason a million games after Arkham Asylum ripped off its combat. If you know what to expect out of Shadow of War then its combat is top-tier, even better than Arkham Knight because of its higher difficulty modes and enemy captains that you have to change your strategy around.
There's little to memorize and no rhythm but it does play like DDR with less buttons so you're not completely wrong.
Yes, thanks to overly flashy moves and incredibly shallow gameplay that removes a lot of the basic things you'd have to think about in a proper beat-em-up they managed to succeed at making a game for people who don't like playing video games.
